


Let Me Die

by RoseNox98



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future Fish, M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseNox98/pseuds/RoseNox98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If you are reading this, then it means something went wrong. I'm either missing or dead, but either way it means I didn't make it back. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Die

The atmosphere in the command center was on edge, waiting for word from Space Explorer III.

The shuttle was on it's way to Mars, the first mission of it's kind.

They had gotten this far with intermittent communication, but the shuttle was entering unknown territory.

"Mr. Hazuki? Do you copy?"

"Roger. I copy," came the pilot's sunny voice, a little broken by static. 

Everyone in the room relaxed a little, but none more than a blue haired man near the front. 

Rei Ryugazaki looked down at his left hand, the thin silver band on his ring finger just non-traditional enough to be conspicuous. 

There was a strict policy about tech scientists dating the astronauts, though Rei supposed they weren't dating since they got married the week before Nagisa's mission launched. 

Even if they found out now there was really nothing they could do to his husband. He was in space, had been for nearly six months. 

"I passed an asteroid belt a few days ago, now, so I should be nearing the planet surface any day no-oh shit."

The sounds of sirens came over the com, and the room became a flurry of motion, people shouting out order as communication cut off. 

Rei felt like his heart was in his throat, pushing its way out. 

His fingers flew over keys, typing out code that he'd memorized long ago. 

They worked all night, but as screens on their end let up red with warnings, Rei felt hope for humanities expansion slipping through their fingers. 

He felt the love of his life slipping through his more acutely. 

\----------------------------------------------------

A month after contact was lost, the mission was declared failed, and Nagisa was proclaimed dead. 

The next day a man Rei recognized as another astronaut approached him after work, a box in his hands. 

"Mr. Ryugazaki, you don't know me, but I worked closely with Hazuki-kun.   
He asked me before he left to give you this if anything went wrong."

He held out the box, blue eyes wide and sad. 

Rei took the box, hands shaking. 

"Thank you, Mr?"

The man blushed, pushing a lock of silver hair behind his ear. 

"Nitori. My name is Nitori."

"Thank you, Nitori."

Nodding, the younger man turned and walked back to the main building, leaving Rei standing outside alone. 

Rei put the box in his passenger seat, and didn't look at it again until he was pulling up to the small apartment he had gotten with Nagisa. 

He brought the box in with him, upending it on the counter to sort through what was left of Nagisa. 

The bright pink glitter pen, a small penguin charm on the end. 

A handful of pictures from their days in Iwatobi, the old swim team smiling when they placed first at Nationals. 

Rei ran a finger over Nagisa's face, blinking back tears. He'd see him again, he knew he would. 

A flash of white caught his eye in the clash of kitschy colors, and Rei reached out for it, tugging a letter from the pile of pens and knick knacks. 

'Rei' was written on the envelope in Nagisa's messy handwriting. 

Rei's hands shook as he tore the seal apart. 

"Rei-chan," tears filled Rei's eyes at the familiar endearment. 

"If you are reading this, then it means something went wrong. I'm either missing or dead, but either way it means I didn't make it back.   
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to leave you this way instead of fifty years from from now. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. Rei, I'm sorry that I left before we could give each other the life that we promised we would. I'm sorry that my last words to you are on paper."

Rei was openly crying, tears hitting the paper and smearing the ink. 

Wasn't his fault. None of it was Nagisa's fault. 

He took his glasses off, setting them carelessly amid Nagisa's things, and read the rest of the letter. 

"I can't put into words how much I love you. Present tense. Even if I'm gone that love isn't. I want you to live the best life you can, even if it's without me. I want you to be so happy Rei-chan, so that's why I'm saying this: If you love me let me die.

Forever yours, Nagisa."

He committed the words to memory, crying harder when he found Nagisa's wedding ring in the envelop, still on it's chain. 

\------------------------------

It took a full year for Rei to even begin to move on. 

He moved out of their shared house into a small one bedroom apartment, the memory of Nagisa all but packed away. 

Rei put most of his stuff in storage, only keeping out a few pictures and scrap books they'd made over the years. 

The twin rings stayed on a single chain around his neck. 

\-----------------------------

The first time Rei almost got close to anyone was in a bar down the road for his work, a few guys from his department sitting around the table with him.

Talk of a new mission had started circulating, and just as Rei noticed a man at the bar eyeing him, one of his co-workers sighed.

"Too bad about that Hazuki fellow, I'd hate to see another good astronaut go down like that."

Another snorted. "He was an airhead, probably pushed a button he wasn't supposed to."

Rei felt his stomach churn, bile coming up in the back of his throat. 

"Are you okay, Ryugazaki?" asked the man beside him, looking at him with concerned green eyes. "You got pale all of a sudden."

Rei felt like he was going to be sick, hearing Nagisa's life cast about so flippantly by people who didn't even know him.

His husband had been excitable, sure, always smiling too widely, but he had studied hard to get into the space program. 

He was responsible and he took his job very seriously.

"I'm fine, I just find faulting the-the dead for their death a bit distasteful."

He tried to blink back the tears that threatened to fill his eyes at having to say such a thing, the words feeling wrong on it tongue. 

The rings hanging under his shirt felt heavy against his chest.

Crowed, the other two men stopped, but he could feel them looking at him anytime the topic changed to that of the possibilities of the new mission.

When Rei really couldn't keep it together, he excused himself. He was feeling dizzy, skin clammy.

The man that had been eyeing him at the bar, he realized as he paid his bill and rushed out, was no longer there.

\-------------------------------------

It took a few more months before Rei went out for coffee with a young lady named Gou, who's excitement had reminded him of Nagisa at once.

She liked cooking and muscles ans was going to the local college on a scholarship.

They went out a few times before Rei got up the courage to try to kiss her, but before he could lean in he felt the rings against his chest, and it suddenly felt like a betrayal.

He pulled back, and Gou looked almost offended until she saw the tears in his eyes.

That night she sat him down with a cup of hot tea and he allowed himself to really break down, sharing the pain he had kept to himself for over a year.

Gou wrapped her arm over his shoulder, crying with him when he pulled out the rings, two silver bands clicking together.

He might have lost her as a potential lover, but he had gained her as a friend.

\-------------------------------------

Rei's life changed again in the control room.

He had been tracking the path of a satellite, when a signal came through on the large monitor in the front of the room.

Rei looked up, heart skipping a beat then stopping for a fraction of a second when he saw the requset on the computer.

"Space Explorer III requesting communication. "

The requests was accepted at once, a voice Rei thought he'd never hear cutting through the silence. 

"-ello? Can you hear me? Hello?"

The static was heavy, but there was no mistaking it. 

Nagisa was alive. 

"We hear you. What is your status?"

"Stable, for now. Something in the controls broke, but I fixed it. Sorry I've been out of contact for so long."

Rei could hardly believe it, happiness and fear coursing through him. 

Nagisa was alive, but even if he made it back to earth, there was no way of knowing if the shuttle could even handle reentry. 

\-------------------------

It took a week to pinpoint the shuttle's location, but once they did the large screen at the front of the room was once again lit up with a map, tracking the shuttle as it got closer. 

Three months after contact had been made, Space Explorer III landed. 

Rei was in the control room, watching the live feed from the landing pad as the door to the shuttle opened, a figure in a bright orange space suit stumbling out. 

A loud cheer broke out through the room, everyone laughing and clapping as the astronaut was escorted through the mass of media personal, cameras flashing in the crowd. 

He was taken to the med bay, and Rei knew Nagisa would have to undergo a full physic evaluation before he'd be able to see him. 

\--------------------

Rei had to wait two weeks before the nurse gave him the okay. 

His stomach was in knots, hands shaking as he pushed open the door to his room. 

Nagisa was reading, a stack of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. 

Rei watched as he hit tiled something down, setting the pen to the side do he could turn the page. 

The pen clattered to the floor softly, and when Nagisa reached out for it again and it was not just hanging in mid air where he left it, he looked up first. 

Before Rei had had time to process what that implied, he found himself staring into big pink eyes. 

Eyes he never thought he's have the chance to see again. 

"Rei," Nagisa gasped, dropping the 'chan' in his shock. 

"Hello, Nagisa," he said shakily, leaving off the 'kun' in return. 

A beat, a moment that felt like a lifetime, then Nagisa was standing up, papers falling out of his hands and scattering at the floor, and launching himself at Rei.

Rei caught him, arms wrapped around his waist.

Nagisa pressed his face into Rei's shoulder, and Rei buried his nose in his hair, the scent of strawberries so achingly familiar that it brought tears to his eyes. 

"I missed you so much, Rei-chan," Nagisa said against his neck, and Rei hugged his even tighter, choking back a sob.

"I know you told me to, but I could never move on from you Nagisa-kun." The tears did fall, then, one after another.

Nagisa pulled back, brows frowned. "Wha-oh." His eyes went wide. "You found the letter. Oh, Rei-chan."

"I thought you were dead, you were gone and there was nothing i could do."

Rei pressed his face into Nagisa's hair again. "I'm sorry i couldn't do what you asked of me, but I've never been happier about being wrong. When you made contact again..." He felt like his heart was going to burst, but it was because of love not pain, and he would take that feeling over anything.

Nagisa pulled back, reaching up to put his hands on Rei's cheeks.

"Please don't cry, Rei-chan. I'm here now. I'm safe."

He wiped the tears away, running his thumbs over Rei's wet cheeks.

"I love you, Nagisa. I love you so much and I-"

Nagisa leaned up, silencing Rei with a soft kiss.

"It's okay, I'm happy you didn't listen to me."

Rei blinked. "You are?"

"Yeah. I thought about that letter everyday. If I'm gone, I want you to do whatever makes you happy, because I love you. But I'm selfish, too. I want to keep you all to myself."

"Nagisa." Rei didn't know what to say, but Nagisa was openly crying, too.

He mirrored him, cupping his husband's cheeks.

"We get to have that life you talked about," he said softly, and Nagisa let out a watery laugh.

"Yeah?" he asked, sniffling. 

Rei smiled, pulling back long enough to take his necklace off, letting the twi rings fall into his palm.

Nagisa's eyes went wide at the sight of them as Rei picked up the smaller of the two, and held out his left hand.

"You'll need this back, I guess," he mumbled as he slipped the wedding band back onto his finger.

It fit a little lose, and Rei noticed then that Nagisa had lost a lot of weight. He would fix that.

He put his own ring on, and stuffed the empty chain in his pocket. 

"The nurse said I could go home today, I'm just not sure where home is anymore." 

There was an unspoken question hanging in the air. 

"I didn't sell the house, but I've been living in an apartment. I couldn't be there without-"

"It's okay, Rei-chan. I get it."

Rei gave Nagisa a grateful smile, lifting a hand to cup the back of Nagisa's head, fingers threading through blond hair. 

Rei smiled at him, and Nagisa grinned in return, sunshine bright just like Rei remembered it. 

He'd almost forgotten how beautiful it was. 

Nagisa rose up on his tiptoes, eyes closing when Rei leaned down. 

The kiss was sweet, just a long press of lips on lips. 

Then Nagisa started smiling, and there ended up standing with their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed and just soaking in the other's presence. 

"Take me home, Rei-chan?" Nagisa asked softly, lips just brushing Rei's as he spoke.

Rei smiled, closing the gap, kissing Nagisa twice before pulling back.

"Of course."

\---------------------------------------------------

The night they fell asleep in a bad that no longer left too big to Rei, legs tangled together.

Nagisa hummed, resting his head on Rei's bare shoulder.

His fingers traced invisible patterns on Rei's chest, and Rei did the same, fingers brushing lightly over the jut of Nagisa's hip.

"It's good to be back," Nagisa said, breaking the silence.

He perched his chin on Rei's chest, and the other man looked down, squinting a little without his glasses so he could see his lover clearly.

"It's good to have you back," Rei confessed, tone fond.

Nagisa yawned, falling asleep quickly once he settled back in, breaths fanning softly against Rei's skin.

He stayed up, half afraid that the last two weeks had been a dream and that when he opened his eyes in the morning he'd be in bed alone, Nagisa still lost somewhere in space.

He brushed his blond hair from his face, running his fingers over the curls behind his ear.

Nagisa was beautiful, and Rei could scarcely believe that he got to be the one to hold him at night.

"I love you," He whispered just before he fell asleep.

As his breathing deepened and evened out, Nagisa smiled.

"I love you too, Rei-chan."


End file.
